Playing the Desert Rats game has raised some questions in my mind. Please note that this is not intended to be criticism towards any player, or whining about the game... A player makes an argument intended to achieve a result. In order to tell a good story, players sometimes include information in their argument (or reasons) that are not part of the existing matrix. What is the effect of these details? Example: I write an argument that my unit will move to the next town. In my argument I also mention that I'm Rommel's nephew, or I'm an Olympic athlete, or I majored in Bedouin languages in college, none of which was established in my character's bio, or on previous turns of the game. If the argument is successful, do these details also become part of the matrix of the game? Can I refer to them in later arguments - "Rommel would never let his favorite nephew die in the desert, so he sends a platoon of tanks to help." Or are they like window dressing - they make the story more enjoyable, but are otherwise meaningless. If they become part of the matrix, are they taken into consideration when judging the strength of an argument? How about the reasons given for an argument. If the argument succeeds, do all the reasons also become part of the matrix, or just the action and result? Dear Matt When player make up their reasons they are trying to fill in details that no reasonable game would include. The fact that Muhammad is Col. Leslie's friend is one such instance. The arugment worked and that contact was made. BUT such reasons do not strengthen an argument as much as ideas that are already established. So as the game progresses it is best to build on established facts. Early in the game it is good to fill in the blanks of the world. Mind you, none of this is in the rules. These are just ideas that I've come up with over the years. More guide lines than rules. Sincerely Chris Engle Matt Continues Hi Chris, I figured that your three reasons should be based on facts previously established, while the action and result would be new facts to be added to the matrix. I get your point about the canvas being mostly blank early in a game. If a reason that comes out of the blue doesn't add much strength compared to a reason that is based on already established facts I guess that makes sense. I better go back and look over the last two turns more closely! There's a lot more information in play than I realized. When this game started I thought that Actions and Results would only be changing the present and future because the past was defined by the scenario. Now I know better. I suppose a lot of this will depend on the referee, and the type of game being played. Things are pretty cool so far, and we have 6 more turns. I'm learning as we go. Matrix games - an hour to learn, a lifetime to master. Today's the day I hope to run my Africa scenario. Unfortunately we have some guests coming (vets of the Battle of the Bulge), and while I look forward to meeting them my game might get bumped. I hope not. Marcus Young wrote… I think its really a "substance over form" thing. Although more formal MGs have been proposed (especially by John Kantor), most prefer a fairly informal approach to Argument structure. Thus little distinction is usually made between Action, Result, Reasons etc. One good reason for this is that, as a matter of practice, such distinctions can be difficult to make. Players Argument styles differ greatly, and some do not even give Reasons separately (including, on occasion, Chris, who originally invented the requirement!). Even those who do include 3 separate Reasons will very frequently include what are really "Reasons" in the main body of the Argument, intermingled with the "Action" and the "Result". From Matt Marcus Thank you for your comments. You make an excellent point about people having different styles when making arguments. I ran my Africa scenario today with seven players, and there was a lot of variation. Some players had good ideas, but their arguments didn't have any structure. I didn't hold it against them. Another player would give two good reasons and the third would be totally off the wall. If he made me laugh I counted it in his favor. I realize now that I was looking at the argument as three separate and distinct things: action, result, and reasons. If I understand your point this is an artificial distinction with not real meaning, it just reflected my own style of writing arguments. Dylan Alliata writes… Following up on Marcus' well stated post on reasons, if you play a solitaire matrix game, you will quickly discover coming up with three reasons for all the sides involved can be a bit tedious. You might also want to waive the reason rules when playing with kids and just judge the strength of the action. Kids know what they want done but may not be able to give the reasons 3. Chris also allows emotional arguments, the type of argument that is allowed because it feels right. The one meta-rule in all this is have fun, and let the players know what your preferences are up front, especially if they are bigger than you and prone to violence, that way you can avoid Extreme Quibbles and wind up on the popular show Cops. Matt replies… I don't have any experience with solitaire games (yet). During the face to face game I ran today I did have the players list their reasons. They didn't always come up with three. This was to my benefit since the more formal structure made it easier for me to assess the strength of their arguments. This was a lesson I learned from my first game, a Vietnam scenario, in which I didn't give the players much direction on how to phrase their arguments. The result was a lot of confusing muddled arguments that I struggled to understand. One player in particular was playing the VC and had a tendency to lapse into a diatribe of communist propaganda that left me perplexed. In today's game there were seven players. Three of them had played in my Vietnam game, the rest had never played a MG game. Two of them had very little wargaming experience of any kind. Not only did I ask them to list their reasons but I also counted them out loud. "Okay, that's two," I hold up two fingers, "can you think of another?" In many cases I found myself coaching them. They would say what they wanted to happen and mix in the reasons why it would happen. Player: "They just shot at the elephant so it's going to charge them." Me: "Okay, you want the elephant to charge them. What are your reasons for this to happen? One, they shot at him. Any others?" Sometimes I made suggestions when they had a hard time thinking of good reasons. Occasionally the players came up with a lousy argument and I tried to help them change it into something that had a chance to succeed. I also confess that sometimes I rated an argument stronger because it "felt right", a player really needed a break, or it would improve the game. I'm sure that I would have been more passive if I had more experience as a referee. We were all novices. My rule is that if everyone has fun, you did the right thing. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #28 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com